


Cupped Fireflies

by deltachye



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, One Shot, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 15:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19793575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [reader x tooru oikawa]you always know when he lies to you; and yet, it hurts more to know.[DW19]





	Cupped Fireflies

It wasn’t exactly a whole surprise. Looking back, you should’ve seen it coming. It was the classic _“I’m popular and have girls up my ass, and you’re a girl who’s not up my ass and isn’t popular._

_Let’s pretend-date. It’s win-win.”_

You’ve known Tooru since elementary, and back then class status didn’t mean anything. Boys and girls played together just fine. There was no such thing as cooties or “do you like him?” or “I only want to be friends with popular people, sorry”. There was just plain and simple friendship. The two of you used to hunt down trinkets in the sand-pit like ambitious pirates, though your only prizes would end up being rocks or grass roots. Didn’t matter. It still felt like gold. You’d run around at dusk, chasing frogs and fireflies—though you’d always have to release them in the end, your parents unimpressed with your trophies. You’d stand there together in the dark, for it was night now, watching the specks of light drift lazily in circles around your heads. They always seemed to be tracing halos.

He played volleyball back then too, though it wasn’t anywhere near as serious as it was now. It was just a fun pastime. You weren’t very athletic, so you never joined him, though now you wonder if anything might’ve changed if you too had gone pro with the sport. Maybe you wouldn’t have ended up here.

But let’s backtrack.

It was high school, your final year. You and Tooru had kind of grown apart. Though that was expected, even if it was sad to think about. You were starting to have less and less in common. In middle school, even though the two of you went to the same one, he was spending more time doing sports and less time chasing stupid fireflies with you. It didn’t have the same charm without him or with anybody else, so you quit too. You were in different classes and saw each other less and less. With social media, the two of you might text every now and then, and talk for hours on end into the night. But then a goodbye would always come eventually, and then it’d go back to radio silence. And then you’d just keep waiting for the next time, wondering if there would even _be_ a next time.

It made perfect sense. It wasn’t like this was an appalling surprise. People grow apart all the time. But you kind of wished things wouldn’t change at all and go back to the way it was. You wished that maybe, you and he could be a special case.

You seriously considered saying no to him when he brought it up at lunch, suddenly picking you up out of your classroom and dragging you up to the quieter roof. The embarrassment of having everybody whisper after you, wondering why _the_ superstar Tooru Oikawa was dragging unspectacular _you_ by the wrist, made your neck itch frantically. The wind was strong today and whipped your hair around your face. His, even when it was this messy, still looked attractive. All of him was attractive. It was unfair. He’d grown up well, and you… well, you were still you.

“[Name]?” he repeated in a sing-song that masked impatience, raising his eyebrow. You snapped out of it and felt yourself nod before your mouth could move to say anything.

“Uh, fine!” you stammered out, feeling your heart stutter in your chest. To save face, you scowled. “It’s just a favour. I expect you to pay me back ten-fold for pretending to be interested in your stinky ass.”

“Ah, so crude,” he tsked. He took a single step towards you and you were suddenly faced with just how close he’d actually been. With a long finger that felt rough to the touch, even on your chin, he tilted your head up so that you could look at him. Once, you’d been taller than him. Those days were long gone. His smug smile felt like it was burning you head to toe. Every nerve in your body sparked spastically as he leant in close.

“Funny that I still _love_ you for it.”

The pretending had already begun, you knew. But it sounded so real. You should’ve seen it coming, as you tell yourself over and over. You’re a smart girl. You should’ve known.

But yet… it felt so real.

You’d never had a boyfriend or girlfriend yet. Isn’t that sad? All of high school and _nobody_ had shown interest in you; well, besides the weird guys who you didn’t even like to think about, since they gave you the feeling of spiders crawling down your shirt. It wasn’t like you were totally lonely, since you had great friends. But you couldn’t help but feel like your time was running out. It was your last year of high school, and you didn’t think you’d finished half of the things you were supposed to have done by now. You’d like to say _that_ was your reason for saying yes to Tooru so easily. It was win-win, right? He was off the market and would be somewhat left alone by his weird horde of fangirls. You got to taste the life of the girl you’d always secretly wished you were. Though whether that ‘girl’ was just the popular one that was envied, or if the ‘girl’ was just whoever was dating Tooru Oikawa… you wouldn’t admit.

It was kind of fun in the beginning. People already kind of knew the two of you were friends since you weren’t _total_ strangers to each other. But now you were obliged to show up to each one of his games. You were supposed to be visible, because what’s the point of having a fake girlfriend if there’s no publicity? You were a bit shy about cheering him on, but you roped your friends—those poor, wonderful souls—into coming with you. You made cheesy posters, finding use of your card-making hobby. It made sure he could spot you in the crowd. He always did, locking eyes with you. Before important matches he’d blow you kisses all the way across court. Girls around you would squeal like it was for them, but you knew. He’d take you out a lot, too; to bakeries and cafes and even fancy sit-down dinners. Though you said out loud you were just happy for the free food, in reality, you really liked that the two of you got to spend time together again. It didn’t even matter what you were doing, as long as he was doing it with you.

Once, the both of you were walking off a particularly heavy pasta meal when he suddenly cupped his hands near your head. When he opened them, they revealed a firefly. It looked tiny in his huge palms. You were both quiet when you watched it fly away. You had no idea what he was thinking in his head, but you thought you at least knew what was in his heart, if it was the same as yours.

He broke up with you the day after that.

You’d always known that the day would come. Eventually. There had always been an expiry date to the fun. Graduation was fast approaching. But you thought it’d be a two-person partnership thing. You know, the way relationships are supposed to be. Maybe the two of you would stage it to be super dramatic. A fight in the hallway, following some cheesy script the two of you cooked up.

Anything but a _text_.

Really? After all that, you deserved nothing but a goddamn text. Maybe he didn’t care about you as a lover after all. Maybe not even enough as a friend. Maybe this, maybe that. You hated him for putting you into this spiral of self-hatred and despair, but most of all, you think you hate yourself for buying into it too much. Was this your fault all along?

It might’ve been fine after a while if the two of you just parted ways. For now, you couldn’t think about becoming friends with him again. But maybe. Yes, another maybe. The possibility was still there because you already missed him. Even though the relationship had ended so sourly, you missed him as a person. Pathetic, you knew. Yet it only took a short while for you to feel the void. He’d been your friend before your fake boyfriend, after all. Losing your best friend cut deeper than losing your fake boyfriend.

But then he starts dating this girl a week later, and you decide you can never be friends with him again.

It eats away at you. You know you should drop him and leave it at that. All your friends tell you he’s scum and evil, and though you agree, you don’t. He’s done something horrible to you, but you can’t seem to forget how soft his hazelnut brown eyes had been in amber yellow firefly light.

He’s lying to her, you think. He has to be, whenever he says ‘I love you’ to her in the same way he had to you. He’d been lying because it was fake dating, but you _know_ it couldn’t have been all fake. And he’s lying to you, you, whenever he says ‘I love you’ to somebody else. So, you do something very stupid (what’s new?), and confront him about it on the rooftop.

“Do you actually love her?” you ask, fighting back your tears. You know him well enough to know that when he takes too long to answer, he’s lying. He’s meticulous to a fault. Tooru absolutely sucks at lying because he takes too long to come up with a story, and it’s never even good. When he tells the truth, it comes right away, and when he lies, it takes too long. But, this is worse, because he chooses not to answer you at all.

“Sorry,” he mutters, and the word means _nothing_ to you, which hurts you worse than anything else he could’ve said. It means the two of you have lost all sense of trust and connection. You’re just two people now.

As the years pass you try to grow as a person. It straight up sucks that you’ve lost this friendship, one you cherished deep to your heart. He did really terrible things, but now that you’re older, you might be able to move past it. It took you something like ten years, but maybe now, you’re ready to forgive him?

That is, until you get the RSVP to his wedding.

At first, you can’t believe he has the audacity, and you spiral back into who you were when you were fragile and young and heartbroken all over again. Once, you had been okay with the idea of marrying him. You even daydreamt about it, finding comfort in the thought of being able to wake up next to your best friend every day. But maybe you’re less mad that he isn’t marrying you, and more upset that he wants you to witness it when ten years later,

you are still in love with Tooru Oikawa.

This seems like it’s nobody else’s but your own fault. You should’ve been able to move on, right? That break-up should’ve been bad enough for you to cut him off. Or you should’ve grown up and moved on, found somebody new that loved you for real, and wouldn’t end it with a text. At the very goddamn least, you should not have gone to this wedding.

So why are you here?

You don’t know who this woman is. You haven’t kept tabs on him. All you know is that he’s doing pretty well for himself in the sports world. It’s like, the one thing you’re proud of yourself for—not checking his social media religiously like you used to in high school. Now you wish you had prepared yourself. She’s gorgeous, of course, and she cries at the altar while the vows are being read. Somehow, she manages to look good while crying, a dusty rose blush coming onto her dewy face. You hate her for it. But you ignore her, even with her stunning, expensive looking white dress. Your eyes are only on him. He looks older, but good for his age. His face has changed a lot. But it’s still handsome, unfairly so. Only his hazelnut eyes seem the same, but they’re dry. He isn’t crying at all. He barely even smiles.

As the ceremony ends you meander around for a bit, not wanting to be seen but also wanting to be noticed so that you don’t have to be the one to start the dreaded conversation. People chat in the beautiful venue, expensive champagne flutes and disgusting sounding hor d’oeuvres in hand. You don’t recognize anybody, which is kind of sad. Shouldn’t Tooru have invited more people from his past? You don’t see Hajime Iwaizumi, his childhood best friend, anywhere. There’s nobody else but strangers. Was it really just you? What does that mean?

A tap on your shoulder startles you as you’re jumpy and you whirl around, hand over your jittering heart. It completely stops when you recognize the clothes, and then drops right into your feet when you look up and meet Tooru’s eyes. Even in your high heels, he’s much too tall. He’s sharp in his groom’s suit, though you think he looks more comfortable when he’s in his sports gear. He smiles at you, but it looks like a grimace.

“There’s a rooftop patio, here. Do you want to go talk there?”

You could’ve said no. You could’ve chosen not to come at all. But again, you nod wordlessly and follow. There are some things that need to be said. Or heard. You don’t know. But you think you at least need to face him again after ten years.

It’s not windy up here, shielded by expensive looking glass. Amber lights are strung around for ambiance, but they look heartbreakingly like fireflies suspended in the air.

He shifts uncomfortably in his shoes. You do the same. The silence stretches onwards even though your thoughts are so loud. You’ve had ten years to think about what to spew at him, but now that you’re here, you find that you don’t have anything to say. After it passes the threshold of awkward to unbearable, you decide to just bite the bullet.

“Do you actually love her?”

He’s quiet for one beat, then two. Then too many. He’s working out a story. He’s _still lying to you_.

The anger explodes in you and you see tides of red. You demand why—why he’d do that to her and why he did it to himself. Why he’s ruining the meaning of marriage. But lastly, in tears, you ask why he’s doing it to _you_.

“I’m stupid,” he says wryly, seeming not at all serious for such a serious thing like a _marriage_ he isn’t committed to. Even though there’s little wind up here, it feels so cold. “Isn’t that what you used to tell me all the time when we were kids? As a joke?”

“You could be better than this… It isn’t too late—”

“It’s _always_ too late!” he cuts off sharply. You already know you’re begging futilely, but it crushes you to hear him reject it so bluntly all the same. He grips his hands that used to cup fireflies into tight, trembling fists. “It’s too late for us, [Name]. So I’m sorry, I really am. But this is the way it is now.”

“Did you end it like that in high school because you went too far and really fell in love with me? Even though we promised we wouldn’t?!” you demand desperately, not knowing if hearing it after this much time will give you closure. But you feel the need to hear it anyways. You squeeze your eyes shut like it’ll help lessen the impact of whatever he has to say. But he says it softly.

“Yes,” he breathes, right away, without a second’s hesitation. But then he looks away and his eyes are dark and glassy. “It’s like everything I do is a _mistake_. I’m always second-best, always screwing up… But it’s been done.”

You want to be foolish and keep saying, ‘no, there’s still hope’. You want to go back to the times when you were kids and all you had to worry about was if the firefly sitting in your hands was still able to fly. Yet you feel like your wings have been clipped. You feel like you’re being left behind, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Want to know what’s worst of all? As he walks away from you, to go back to his wife,

you _still_ love him.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: https://deltachye.tumblr.com/


End file.
